Zoobreak (8 page)

Logan felt especially guilty. “Klaus?” he called into a grating. “We’re going to phone somebody to get you out. Just as soon as we — uh — finish.”

There was a long pause. Then: “Ferris? Is that you?”

“Just relax,” Logan soothed. “The sooner we load up these animals, the sooner we can send help.”

A cry of outrage erupted from the vent, followed by more struggling and banging.

The roundup began. They chased Hoo all through the boat in a series of collisions and near misses until Savannah tossed a tarpaulin over the swooping owl. Grateful for the return of darkness, Hoo allowed himself to be captured. Griffin got busy with the wire cutters, snipping through bars and opening cages. A large cardboard carton became home to the meerkat, prairie dog, chipmunks, squirrels, and beaver. The chicken and piglet were swaddled in Melissa’s hoodie. A battered suitcase with a broken fastener became the reptile room, housing the frogs, turtles, salamanders, garter snakes, and chuckwalla. The rabbits fit in an old shopping bag, but the ferret could not be trusted with them, so Ben had to stick it inside his sweater. The duck and the loon fought and had to be stashed in separate boxes. And the hamsters, gerbils, and mice were spread out among everybody’s pockets.

“When we get to the boat, we can wrap them in the fishing nets,” Savannah told the others. “That’ll be more secure.”

They carried the whole menagerie outside and moved around the outer deck to
starboard, where they had moored the rowboat.

Pitch drew in a deep breath. “Fresh air! I’ve got to admit — I never thought we’d make it this far!”

They reached the starboard gunwale and peered over the rail. The ratline of fishing nets hung loosely down, stirring with the movement of the waves.

The dory was gone.

“
W
here’s the boat?” Logan wailed.

Savannah was mystified. “Did it sink?”

Pitch shook her head. “Then it would still be bobbing at the end of the net.” She wheeled on Griffin, furious. “Some
idiot
tied up the boat with a knot he learned in Balloon Animals 101!”

In a frenzy, Griffin panned his flashlight over the surrounding waters.

“What’s the point?” groaned Ben. “Even if you spot it, we can’t swim for it. Face it, Griffin, we’re so dead that even dead people would be amazed how dead we are.”

“Not yet!” Griffin exclaimed, stuffing an errant gerbil back in his pocket.

“Give it up!” Pitch snapped. “Even The Man With The Plan can’t make a boat out of no boat!”

Griffin ran to the stern and returned dragging the bright yellow suitcase he’d used as a stepstool while boosting Ben up to the vent. “Stand back, everybody!” he cried, pulling the cord.

There was an explosion of compressed gas, and the suitcase began to grow and unfold, morphing into a giant life raft, complete with outboard motor and sun canopy.

Pitch goggled. “I take it all back. You
can
make a boat out of no boat!”

The cruise back to Cedarville was a lot faster than the first trip, mostly because of the life raft’s outboard. In fact, in many ways the craft was ideal for a zoobreak. It was meant for a shipwreck and was stocked with food, water, a compass, rain gear, and medical supplies. None of this was of great importance to the team, except that all the gear came in dozens of pouches, packets, and containers. These turned out to be just the right size for stashing small furry animals,
some of whom seemed determined to wriggle overboard and/or eat their fellow travelers.

Griffin manned the rudder, his eyes darting from the map to the compass to the approaching coastline. All things considered, he was pretty pleased with the way the operation had worked out. True, there had been a few unexpected twists. But a truly great plan was always able to adapt. And the end result — the rescue of Cleopatra — was a total success. The forty hitchhikers were Savannah’s problem — and her friend Dr. Alford’s.

Beside him, Melissa worked at her BlackBerry, e-mailing the police department of Rutherford Point to rescue Klaus from the zoo boat ceiling. She knew a way to send the message via a dummy server in Hong Kong. That way, it could never be traced to her.

Pitch was the first to spot the lights of the Cedarville Marina. “When we get off this raft,” she vowed, “I’m going to drop to my knees and kiss the ground.”

“You guys were fantastic tonight,” said Savannah, her voice quavering with emotion. “I’ll never forget this.”

“Me, neither,” Ben assured her. “If I ever get on TV and they ask, ‘What’s the worst
thing that ever happened to you?’ this is going to be it.”

The shore gradually grew more distinct, and the moored boats loomed out of the darkness. At last, Griffin cut the engine, and the raft ran aground on the beach. The time was 3:35 a.m.

“I see Darren isn’t here yet,” said Pitch sarcastically, stepping out onto the sand.

Now all that remained was to unload the animals in their pouches and boxes and bike them over to Savannah’s shed.

“What about the boat?” Melissa asked, frowning. “If it’s found in Cedarville, Mr. Nasty might be able to connect it to us.”

Once again, The Man With The Plan had an answer. Together, the team engaged the engine, turned the raft around, and sent it putt-putting toward distant Connecticut.

The bicycle parade started slowly, its riders overburdened by the former inhabitants of the floating zoo. Savannah was in the lead, with Cleopatra sitting piggyback and the tarpaulin containing Hoo in the front basket.

It seemed grossly unfair that this final effort was required of them after all they’d endured tonight. Perhaps a team pushing to
the summit of Mount Everest would be more exhausted, but it seemed unlikely.

They rode in silence to avoid waking anyone in the sleeping town. Discovery was unthinkable. Not so close to the finish line.

When they turned the corner and the Drysdale house came into view, a cry of recognition escaped Cleopatra.

“Sweetie — shhh,” Savannah said, hushing her.

The sound reached no human ears, but that didn’t mean it reached no ears at all. A large, dark shape sailed through an open first-floor window and hit the ground at a full gallop. Luthor closed the gap in seconds, his meaty paws barely touching the pavement. The leap began ten feet away.

Ecstatic, Cleopatra vaulted over Savannah’s shoulder and met her best friend in midair.

Savannah dived off her bike just in time. The wipeout was spectacular. She hit the grass and rolled as the bike careened wildly, steering itself into a telephone pole. The collision bounced the tarp out of the basket and sent it spinning and unwrapping along the road.

With a hoot that shattered the quiet of the wee hours, a bundle of brown feathers shot
out of the basket like a Tomahawk missile. Hoo circled once and then soared off, vanishing into the night.

Five pairs of eyes stared at Savannah, waiting for her reaction.

She waved, a blissful expression on her face. “He’s free,” she announced happily.

“I thought animals from captivity can’t compete in the wild,” Ben reminded her.

“He’s the only one who can,” she said serenely. “He’ll be fine. And all the others will be, too — starting tomorrow.”

A contented Cleopatra climbed aboard Luthor for the short trot home.

Hoo circled high above them, exploring this strange new world.

T
he music room faded around Griffin, and the trombone slipped from his nerveless fingers. His head slid backward into the bell of the tuba behind him. The tuba player, Darren Vader, delivered a blast that knocked Griffin out of his chair and into the clarinet section on the riser below.

It didn’t sound much like the theme from
Rocky
, but at least it woke him up.

“Griffin Bing!” Mr. Hoberman, the bandleader, exclaimed in exasperation. “Could I trouble you to stay awake?”

It was morning, a few hours after they’d returned, and Operation Zoobreak was taking its toll on Griffin. He believed in planning 100 percent. But no plan could ever account for
going to school on eighty-three minutes of sleep.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, retrieving his instrument. “It won’t happen again.” Now he knew how Ben felt when the irresistible sleepiness stole over him — stunned and helpless.

The bandleader sighed. “Go to the boys’ room and splash some water on your face. And don’t come back until you’re ready to be a part of this orchestra.”

“Late night, Bing?” Darren snickered behind him.

“No,” Griffin hissed. “We had to call it off because some
traitor
didn’t show!”

Darren reddened. “I
told
you — my uncle came over, and the guy wouldn’t leave! I couldn’t get out of the house.”

“Sure, sure,” Griffin muttered, setting the trombone on its stand and staggering toward the door. He’d already warned the zoobreak team not to tell Darren anything. He couldn’t be trusted to keep his big mouth shut any more than he could be trusted to follow through on a promise.

The blast of Darren’s tuba still ringing in his ears, Griffin headed for the boys’ room. He never got there. The door to the girls’ room
was flung open, and a small arm reached out and pulled him inside. There stood Savannah, her face white, her eyes wild.

“What’s the big idea?” Griffin complained. “If I get caught in here —”

“That’s the least of our problems!” Savannah shrilled. She punched a number into a small cell phone and held it to his ear. It rang once before going straight to voicemail:

“You’ve reached Dr. Kathleen Alford, Curator for the Long Island Zoo. I’m presently in equatorial Africa, supervising the transport of three rain-forest baboons to the United States. I’ll be back in the office on Wednesday, April twenty-second. Please leave a message at the tone.”

There was a beep, followed by a different voice: “Mailbox full.”

In an instant, Griffin’s complexion matched Savannah’s. “April twenty-second — that’s two weeks away! You’re going to have to find another zoo!”

“I don’t know anybody else who works in a zoo!” Savannah wailed. “Dr. Alford’s the only person who could find homes for all those animals!”

“Well, I hope they’ve got an Internet café at Baboons ‘R’ Us, because we need her
now
!
What’s she doing there for so long, anyway? How hard can it be to mail a baboon to Long Island?”

They heard the squeak of a heavy door and Savannah whispered urgently, “Hide!”

Griffin locked himself into a stall and stood up on the toilet seat to keep his shoes out of view.

Savannah commenced washing her hands. “Hi, Monica.”

“Guess what was on the news this morning!” The newcomer was agog. “Remember that zoo boat from the field trip? Somebody broke in last night and stole all the animals!”

Griffin very nearly fell into the toilet.

“Wow,” Savannah managed faintly. “That’s unbelievable.”

“Totally!” Monica agreed. “The crooks loaded all the animals onto a lifeboat and took them to Connecticut! You know what beats me? Why they’d even bother. That was the lousiest zoo in the world.”

As soon as Monica was gone, Griffin emerged, looking even paler than before.

“You see, Griffin?” Savannah’s agitation was rising. “We’re in trouble — and the one person who can save us is out of the country!”

“They think we went to Connecticut,” Griffin reflected hopefully.

“They won’t think it for long if all the missing animals turn up in Cedarville,” Savannah persisted. “You’ve got to help me!”

“You asked for help last time,” he reminded her. “And I came up with a great plan to get your monkey back. Everything would have been fine if we’d just stuck to that. But no. One animal wasn’t enough. We had to take forty!”

Savannah was stubborn. “We did the right thing. Those animals are better off in my shed than under Mr. Nasty’s thumb.”

“For two weeks?” Griffin challenged.

Even Savannah had no answer for that. “No, not for two weeks. It wouldn’t be safe, it wouldn’t be sanitary, and I definitely couldn’t keep it a secret from my parents. Especially not if my dad ever wants to cut the grass.”

Griffin ran nervous fingers through his unruly hair. “Okay, let me think.”

His mind raced. A big operation always seemed impossible until you broke it down into its many parts. Taken one by one, if all those tiny parts were possible, then the whole plan had to be possible, too.

Maybe that was the approach he needed here. He could never wrap his mind around hiding forty animals. But could they hide
one
animal — and then do it thirty-nine more times?

Aloud, he said, “Logan’s house has a leaky basement. That sounds like a pretty good place for a beaver to hang out for a couple of weeks….”

“
M
eerkats are
not
rodents,” Savannah lectured at the emergency meeting. “They’re actually related to the mongoose family.”

“Yeah, well, now we know who to call if there’s a cobra infestation,” Ben lamented. “I can’t believe there’s another operation. It isn’t even a whole day since the
last
operation. I went from zoobreaker to zookeeper in just a few hours.”

The team was gathered in Savannah’s yard after school that day for the beginning of Operation Houseguest. Melissa had the wagon she used to deliver the weekly
Pennysaver
. This would serve as transport to distribute the fugitive animals to their temporary safe houses. Luckily, it had been raining off and on all day, so no one in Cedarville would question Melissa’s use of the cart’s waterproof covering.

“It’s only for a couple of weeks,” Griffin told the grumbling team. “It’ll fly by.”